Fungiculture is the cultivation of fungi such as mushrooms. Cultivating fungi can yield foods (which include mostly mushrooms), medicine, construction materials and other products. A mushroom farm is involved in the business of growing fungi.
The word is also commonly used to refer to the practice of cultivation of fungi by animals such as leafcutter ants, termites, ambrosia beetles, and marsh periwinkles.
Edible mushrooms are the fleshy fruit bodies of numerous species of properly identified and prepared fungi. Edibility may be defined by criteria including their palatability and absence of dangerous mycotoxins. Edible mushrooms are consumed for their nutritional and culinary value, often either being cultivated or harvested wild. Easily cultivated and common wild mushrooms are often available in markets; those that are more difficult to obtain may be collected on a smaller scale.
To ensure safety, wild mushrooms must be correctly identified before their edibility can be assumed. Deadly poisonous mushrooms that are frequently confused with edible mushrooms include several species of the genus Amanita, particularly A. phalloides (the death cap). Some mushrooms that are edible for most people can cause allergic reactions in others; old or improperly stored specimens can cause food poisoning. Additionally, mushrooms can absorb chemicals from polluted locations, accumulating pollutants and potentially lethal heavy metals.
Agaricus bisporus, commonly known as the cultivated mushroom, is a basidiomycete mushroom native to grasslands in Eurasia and North America. It is cultivated in more than 70 countries and is one of the most commonly and widely consumed mushrooms in the world. It has two color states while immature – white and brown – both of which have various names, with additional names for the mature state, such as chestnut, portobello, portabellini, button, cremini, and champignon de Paris.
Some poisonous lookalikes in the wild, such as Entoloma sinuatum, may appear similar. Agaricus bisporus often grows in rich soil and compost.
Morchella, the true morels, is a genus of edible sac fungi closely related to anatomically simpler cup fungi in the order Pezizales (division Ascomycota). These distinctive fungi have a honeycomb appearance due to the network of ridges with pits composing their caps.
Morels are prized by gourmet cooks, particularly in Catalan and French cuisine, but can be toxic if consumed raw or undercooked. Due to difficulties in cultivation, commercial harvesting of wild morels has become a multimillion-dollar industry in the temperate Northern Hemisphere, in particular North America, Turkey, China, the Himalayas, India, and Pakistan where these highly prized fungi are found in abundance.